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It has been over 50 years since the first college of design opened its door in Taiwan. As a result of the change in the design industry and society, over the years, colleges of design all over Taiwan have trained a variety of designers with diverse expertise. With colleges of design in Taiwan as the main focus, in particular the structure, revolving around day BA/BFA programs, the present author proposes three topics to be examined: (1) exploring the rise of designer training in Taiwan, its root and development (2) comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences between designer training and visual artist training (3) summarizing the current trends of designer training.
Due to the nature of the research, the current author takes a historical approach, taking a critical look at available past literature, particularly key incidents in designer education, policy making, infrastructure, roots, and further looks into types of college majors, geographical locations and time these design programs were established. He/she roughly selects 24 design-related programs to be subjects. Then, he/she analyzes and interprets those 24 programs’ historical development, their efficiencies, nature of those programs and program design using content analysis to hopefully demonstrate to readers a sketch of designer training in Taiwanese higher education.
The research project involves three parts: (1) contemporariness of designer education: as a mirror, designer education reflects the need of society at the given moment (2) transdisciplinary and industrialized trend: thanks to the fast-paced ongoing change of the society and in turn need of different kinds of talent, designer education is forced to mix with other disciplines and to place more emphasis on the practical side of its program design (3) training in the humanities and aesthetics of visual arts: Though branching out from visual arts, designer education does not really sever itself from visual arts and heavily relies on the classical humanities and visual arts.
The current research is intended to place the designer education in Taiwan on historical time line, scrutinizing its development, efficiencies and infrastructure the past 50-some years. Hopefully, the research findings may provide educator and researcher alike some insights on how to further develop contemporary design program and what to look into for their future research. |